Facebook has opened up its API to third-party developers in hopes of becoming …

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Facebook announced last week its plans to open up its platform to third-party developers, allowing anyone to create extendable widgets for use on Facebook pages. These widgets could be for fun—such as a music player or an embedded game—or functional—such as a portal to book reviews written by users. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a crowd of developers at Facebook's F8 conference last week that the company won't even take a cut of revenues generated by the widgets: "That's all your revenue. And it's good for Facebook because, if you're building great applications, it is a service to our users."

What's in it for Facebook?

The API isn't just open to big companies—anyone can develop for Facebook using its open API and developer resources. Facebook even promises not to elevate its own widgets and services above those offered by third-party developers. Instead, they plan to compete on the same level as everybody else. "Developers won't be second-class citizens—we're going to compete directly with them," said CEO Owen Van Natta to the crowd.

The purpose of the open offer is clear: build it, and they will come. The offer to capitalize on Facebook's quickly-growing user base is a tempting one for companies that have been looking for ways to get involved with social networking but aren't quite so keen on developing their own networks. And with more useful functionality available, more everyday users will be attracted to the service. Or so they hope.

Facebook has already partnered with 65 companies that plan to create widgets for Facebook users. One will be Amazon.com, which plans to offer a widget that allows users to display their own book reviews and build list of favorite works. Another partner will be Microsoft, which plans to integrate its new PopFly widget creation app into Facebook for users to syndicate whatever content they choose. And social music service iLike has also developed a widget that allows Facebook users to see what their friends are listening to and even purchase concert tickets.

Coming face-to-Facebook with MySpace

The announcement takes Facebook in a direction quite opposite to its main competitor, News Corp.'s MySpace. MySpace has always maintained a notoriously closed system and has not hesitated to block out the widget offerings from other services at its own whim in the past. MySpace may be able to get away with that (for now) owing to their strong following of users (they have roughly ten times as many users), but Facebook hopes that its openness will ultimately attract users who want to do more with their social networks.

Facebook is also straying from its long-held rule that all Facebook profiles remain uniform and undecorated—something that often comes as a relief to those trying to escape the monstrosities coming out of MySpace but frustrates users who wish to customize their personal profiles to be more, well, personal. It's unlikely that Facebook will open up the visual layout of its pages to its users as openly as MySpace has. Instead, it seems more likely that the company will allow widgets to only appear in certain sections of a profile.

Facebook is also taking a risk by opening up its API to anybody and everybody who wants to create a widget and by "competing" with their own offerings at the same time. A YouTube widget is sure to get significantly more use and popularity than any Facebook-created video widget, which could sap the site of potential revenues. But Facebook knows this and is apparently willing to take that risk in hopes of growing its user base.

Rumors of a Facebook buyout have been circulating for some time, but they always return to a central theme: Zuckerberg and his cohorts don't plan to drop the company into someone else's lap for just any offer. It's been rumored that Zuckerberg has insisted on upwards of $2 billion in the past, which resulted in companies like Microsoft and Yahoo eventually walking away.

By opening up the API, Facebook has now demonstrated that it is committed to remaining an independent platform... for the time being. "Although a lot of companies continue to approach us, we are not for sale," Facebook board member Jim Breyer told the New York Times. Indeed, Facebook may not be for sale now, but once it grows to a size that can command the kind of money that Zuckerberg wants, that tune may change. Who are we fooling: it will change. In the meantime, Facebook (and its users) have a lot of work to do before that big payday.

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Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui